


and prosper

by renquise



Category: VIXX
Genre: Accidental Marriage, Alternate Universe - Space, M/M, and pretty much every other trope you can think of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-08
Updated: 2017-05-08
Packaged: 2018-10-29 17:24:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,824
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10858623
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/renquise/pseuds/renquise
Summary: The first time Wonshik got married to someone, he and Hakyeon were four hours into a diplomatic conference with the dubious honour of being the most boring discussion of alien bureaucracy Wonshik had ever had the joy of experiencing.Or, the one about Wonshik being space-married to most of his crew.





	and prosper

**Author's Note:**

> you might think that this is an excuse to write every single one of my favourite tropes in one place, andddddd you would be entirely correct. /o\

0.

The first time Wonshik got married to someone, he and Hakyeon were four hours into a diplomatic conference with the dubious honour of being the most boring discussion of alien bureaucracy Wonshik had ever had the joy of experiencing. 

Wonshik wasn’t exactly sure what happened. One moment, he was sitting at Hakyeon’s side, blinking a lot and trying not to fall asleep. He handed over the alien stapler when Hakyeon bapped his side and gestured at it, and then, the gelatinous glob with the rank of Chief Assistant Vice-Manager In Waiting next to him was raising a point of order about their guests’ very touching decision to marry each other.

Wonshik had the rare chance to see Hakyeon knocked speechless for a whole two seconds before Hakyeon blinked and hissed to him, “Roll with it.”

It was the driest ceremony Wonshik had ever participated in. He was pretty sure that they confirmed their everlasting bond by stapling two pages together before spending the next five hours in negotiations over section 52f of the trade treaty, which he thought might have been the local idea of giving them a nice honeymoon.

—

Four years into the mission, though, it had become kind of routine.

“Did you get married to Jaehwan again?” Hakyeon asked when Wonshik came into the briefing room, without looking up from his tablet.

“Uh,” Wonshik stammered. “Maybe?” 

“Oh, dang it,” Hakyeon said, absentmindedly sticking his lips out in a pout and flipping to the next mission briefing. “Not Taekwoon? You’re sure?”

Wonshik squinted at him. “Did you have money riding on me marrying Taekwoon next?”

Hakyeon had the decency to look a little abashed. “Maybe? So did everyone from engineering, though, because the odds were good.”

By the official count, Wonshik held the record for most marriages to individuals on-board: Jaehwan three times, twice to Hongbin, one and a half times to Hakyeon, either once or twice to Taekwoon (depending on interpretation, but Wonshik was pretty sure it was twice), and once to Sanghyuk.

Taekwoon was still leading in the off-ship accidental marriage category, though, because the dark-and-brooding-but-actually-just-a-quiet-weirdo thing was apparently something that was attractive marriage material to a lot of sentient beings, including telepathic plankton collectives. Probably because said telepathic plankton collectives didn’t have to deal with Taekwoon stealing ice cream that people had procured through a complicated series of inter-galactic exchanges and hoarded for months in the science lab freezer.

(Hakyeon was never going to let that one go.)

 

1.

There were a lot of things that Wonshik now knew meant you wanted to get married in some part of the universe, including, but not limited to:

Helping someone out of their jacket  
Tripping over someone’s feet and landing in the bowl of alien punch  
Brushing someone’s hair back into place

There was now an entire document on board specifying what exactly counted as marriage, mostly to forestall any arguments about bet outcomes. Wonshik was pretty sure that he had never heard it articulated in a way this embarrassing.

“Is the translator working okay, you think?” he whispered to Hongbin, trying to subtly adjust his earpiece.

“We join these two hu-mans together in sweet, sweet love as pure and everlasting as the suns and moons in the sky, as sexy-hot and undying as the everlasting spew of hot volcanic gases from the vents of—” 

Hongbin's hands curled up, his shoulders lifting in a whole-body cringe. “Oh my god. Do the thing they were talking about where you kiss my ears so they’ll stop.”

Wonshik bit his lip. He really didn’t want to offend everyone and ruin the sanctity of the ceremony and obliterate all hope of diplomatic relations by dissolving into a giggling fit.

“Wonshik. Kiss my ears.” Hongbin glared up at him, his lips pressed together and his cheeks dimpling, on the edge of dissolving into laughter. 

Wonshik quickly bent to kiss the pink tips of Hongbin’s ears, careful not to disturb the garland of transparent, shimmering flowers in his hair. The officiant stopped, blinked a little and waggled his ears, then made clacking noises that Wonshik had learned were celebratory.

“—so yeah! Happiness, smooches, tax deductions, all that good stuff.” The officiant nodded, satisfied, and made a sweeping gesture towards Hongbin.

Hongbin gestured for Wonshik to bend his head, and Wonshik felt the warm brush of Hongbin’s lips against his ears.

“Wow, does this really mean that I get to claim you on my tax returns?” Hongbin said.

“I don’t think we need to fill out tax returns once we’re in deep space territory. Or wait, do we? Shit.”

Hongbin flushed, grinning awkwardly. “Dumb joke, sorry.”

“I swear I didn’t space-marry you for the sexy tax deductions.”

Hongbin elbowed him in the ribs, rolling his eyes. “I know that. Here, your sexy-hot flower crown is crooked.” 

He reached up to fix Wonshik’s flower crown. His fingers brushed against Wonshik’s ears, lingering for a breath before the crowd started clacking loudly around them, the suns bright and hot overhead.

 

2.

The thing about intergalactic diplomacy was that it always involved a lot of waiting. Especially when Wonshik was trying not to think too loudly.

Jaehwan was playing with his own fingers, wiggling them back and forth in his lap as they waited in the antechamber for the delegation from the neighboring planet to finish their talks. His knuckles were cute.

“Oh my god, do you seriously spend your time thinking about how cute I am?” 

The official had been very apologetic about the accidental marital mind-link. They said that it should wear off in a couple of hours, but that still meant getting through this diplomatic mission without embarrassing himself. 

“Sorry. Um.” 

“Nah, it’s cool.” Jaewhwan said cheerfully. He kicked his feet on the floor, then pouted his lip out thoughtfully, his head tipping to the side and his hair flopping across his forehead. “Hey, how long did they say it was going to last again?” 

He was totally doing this on purpose, at this point. 

“Ha, got you again! Wow.”

Wonshik flushed. A wave of glee rose and fell in the back of his mind with a sharp burst of citrus on his tongue. It was weird knowing that it wasn’t his emotion, but feeling it anyway. 

“What does it feel like, anyway?” Wonshik asked. He might as well know.

“Hm. Like, this punch of giddiness? And this really intense rose smell. It’s pretty obvious.”

Wonshik had thought there was a fire in the room when they had learned about the link. It faded when Jaehwan tamped down his temper with a deep breath, tossing off a joke that it wasn’t the first time Wonshik had accidentally gotten them married. It was like the link was set up to communicate things that humans couldn’t perceive, and it just kept spilling over into his other senses.

He wondered if Jaehwan minded it. Even if it was temporary, it was disorienting. Invasive. 

Jaehwan looked over at him. A sting of concern, quick and sour in his throat. “Hey, it’s fine, right?” 

“Yeah?” Wonshik tipped his head over at him.

“Yeah. When you were working on their communications array stuff—you were really concentrated. I kept hearing this noise like the sea, or something. It was nice.” Jaehwan looked thoughtful. Wonshik could hear it, a sea sound like a recording looped on itself and played through another device.

Wonshik wondered what it would have been like if it had been someone else. If Taekwoon’s bursts of shyness would smell like a sudden, overwhelming wave of cloying flowers, or if Hongbin’s bouts of giddy laughter would taste like tickling fizz on the back of his tongue. 

Jaehwan smoothed his fingers over his lips, his mouth parting under his fingertips. He flicked his gaze up to Wonshik.

“Don’t _do_ that,” Wonshik groaned, putting his head into his hands.

Jaehwan laughed, dropping his hand from his mouth. His eyes crinkled as he grinned. “Tastes nice, though.”

Again, that burst of citrus on his tongue, only deeper in flavour, like burnt sugar. Wonshik swallowed and hoped that the meeting wouldn’t last too long.

 

3.

Hakyeon was sluggish with cold by the time they found the abandoned settlement again. 

Wonshik caught Hakyeon under the elbow when he stumbled. Hakyeon fumbled for his hand and hung on as another gust of wind pushed them back. He was clumsy, and Wonshik really didn’t like it. 

“Thanks.” Hakyeon’s words sounded mushy in his mouth, as if he was having trouble fitting his mouth around the words. Wonshik was exhausted, too, but Hakyeon had been out here longer, caught in the sudden storm that had cut off their communication with the ship.

It had been a miracle that Wonshik was able to find him. They had known that the planet was prone to unpredictable weather, the changes fast and rough, but they had planned this, thought they had enough time. And then, Wonshik had looked up from his work with the communications array to see the roiling edge of a storm roaring up to him, sharp flakes stinging his face. And Hakyeon was out there. His hands shook as he pulled his goggles and face-mask on and headed into the storm towards the traces of Hakyeon’s faint beacon signal.

You should have stayed where there was shelter, it was a stupid risk, what if you had become lost, Hakyeon had scolded him through numb lips when Wonshik found him, his eyes glassy with exhaustion and his cheeks stung red with cold. 

There was no one inside the buildings of the abandoned settlement—it was all empty corridors, weird and unsettling, a silent remainder of life on this planet. But it was shelter. They could still hear the storm outside, the winds roaring. They found the sleeping quarters and the weird half-hammock, half-cocoons beds. Wonshik tipped Hakyeon into one of them in a controlled collapse. 

Hakyeon’s hands were clumsy when he tried to hook his fingers into his damp boots. Wonshik knelt and removed them for him, carefully ignoring Hakyeon’s sigh of relief. He patted Hakyeon’s knee.

“I’m going to check the perimeter, okay? Don’t move.”

It was a bad sign that Hakyeon just nodded, instead of bossily giving him instructions about something Wonshik knew how to do.

Hakyeon was still sitting on the edge of the hammock cocoon when Wonshik came back, swaying on his feet, but still stubbornly trying to keep upright. He blinked up at Wonshik, slow, confused, then shook himself, the disorientation fading from his eyes a bit. 

“We’ll contact the ship when the storm passes,” Hakyeon told him. 

Hakyeon snuggled up to his back as soon as Wonshik slipped into the cocoon, the cold tip of his nose against the nape of Wonshik’s neck. Wonshik wriggled around in his grasp so that he could strip his coat, draping it both of them over themselves, along with the emergency foil blankets—hopefully enough to keep them warm, along with the not-quite-paper, not-quite-silk of the cocoon around them. Hakyeon let out a groan and pressed himself against Wonshik. He was still shaking in strong, convulsive bursts, and his breathing was shallow against Wonshik’s throat. Wonshik rubbed at his back, trying to warm his torso, trying not to panic. It was okay. They had shelter. Hakyeon wasn’t out there, somewhere in the cold and the gale winds. They were okay.

Wonshik caught Hakyeon’s fingers, stripping off his gloves. Hakyeon’s fingers were red at the tips. 

“Can you still feel them?” 

Hakyeon nodded against his neck. “Prickly. Just a little. Yours?” 

“Fine.” He tucked Hakyeon’s hands between them. “Sorry this isn’t the honeymoon suite.” 

“It’s fine. You’d better give me a better honeymoon somewhere else after this. Massages for me. Fruity drinks for you.” 

Wonshik looped his arms around Hakyeon and held him closer, the cocoon swaying in the wind.

In the morning, they woke to a lush warmth, the rapid season cycle of the planet in overdrive and getting faster by the day. Hakyeon was still huddled up to him, his arms latched around Wonshik. His hand was resting on Wonshik’s belly, under his shirt, and his fingers were warm all the way to his fingertips.

When they walked outside, they found ropey, tough shoots already poking out of the melting snow, and Hongbin rushing out to meet them from one of the landers. 

 

4.

“Hey, buy this for me.”

Wonshik turned to see Taekwoon pointing at a display of bracelets. 

He was pretty sure that Hakyeon had tasked them with finding a gift for the embassador, not shopping on shore leave. But then again, Wonshik was pretty sure that Sanghyuk and Jaehwan were, not, in fact, establishing relations with the locals, but instead losing to a bunch of little blue four-armed kids at arm-wrestling. And Hakyeon had given them this task from a really comfy-looking furry blob recliner, half asleep out from lying in the sun. 

So Wonshik was pretty sure that he was okay with spending the afternoon wandering around with Taekwoon, sampling anything food-related from the market stalls that didn’t scan as potentially deadly to humans. Wonshik pulled out his wallet—or well, the bag of little deep black pebbles that served as currency, apparently. He was still having trouble telling the denominations apart, especially since the translator was on the fritz, but he was pretty sure that he still had enough. 

The shopkeeper gestured at one of his eight arms, then at the two of them. Wonshik pointed at the two of them, trying to parse the garbled mixture of words that the translator unit was spilling in his ear. The shopkeeper nodded enthusiastically.

“Oh. Hey, the shopkeeper said that it’s usually something for people who are together, or something? Is that cool?” 

“We’re married, aren’t we?” Taekwoon said, eyebrows raised, as if it was obvious.

Wonshik ducked his head. “Yeah, I guess so, huh?”

“So it’s fine.” Taekwoon looked a little smug at this air-tight logic.

Wonshik helped him fasten the bracelet around his wrist as the shopkeeper made hissing noises that seemed to indicate that it was a wonderful choice, a great choice. Taekwoon rolled his wrist back and forth, his lips parted and fascinated as the dark, matte stones and silver fittings caught the sunshine and went transparent. Wonshik couldn’t help but grin. 

“And you didn’t get me anything?” Jaehwan said when they came back to the ship. “Geez. Here I was, thinking that we were all equal in your affections. I’m asking for a divorce. Captain, permission to fire up the long-range communications array so I can petition four planetary governments for a divorce. No wait, five.”

“Granted,” Hakyeon said airily, waving his hand. 

“It’s nice, right?” Taekwoon said, holding out his wrist for Hakyeon to examine the bracelet. 

“You’re the same pay-grade as him, oh my god, pay for your own stuff for once,” Jaehwan called over. 

“I’ll get you something nice next time?” Wonshik said weakly.

Jaehwan took a break from loudly dictating the terms of his tragic but necessary divorce to Sanghyuk, who was miming typing them in the communications array with great solemnity as Hongbin giggled his face off. “Well. I am nothing if not a forgiving and magnanimous spouse. I’ll only divorce you on two planets.”

“Oh, good.”

Over the next few months, Wonshik kept catching glimpses of silver under the sleeve of Taekwoon’s uniform. Taekwoon sometimes became really attached to wearing something all the time, like the time he had acquired a 21st century snapback and insisted on wearing it with his uniform for weeks. But this was different, somehow. 

 

5.

Wonshik was still conscious when Sanghyuk finds him, but it was a close thing.

“—shik. Talk to me. Come on. Fuck.”

“Hyukkie?” Sanghyuk’s face swam into focus when he opened his eyes.

The world started spinning again, though. He was trying not to move too much, because that made it worse. Sanghyuk’s hand was on his cheek, which was really helping hold his head up, and his touch didn’t hurt at all. It was a nice change.

Sanghyuk blew out a shuddering breath and swallowed. “Okay. Okay, good. Oh fuck, your leg.”

Right. His leg. Everything hurt, but he was trying not to think about his leg, in particular, and the way it left him panting and breathless whenever he tried to move it.

“Okay. I need to move you, because Taekwoon can’t get a fix on us here. I’m going to put a splint on your leg, but it’s going to like. Really really suck. I can’t put anything else in your system, I don’t know how it’s going to interact with whatever else they gave you, fuck.” 

Sanghyuk was putting something around his leg. It puffed up. There was pressure around his leg, shifting things back in place, and, and, he couldn't scream, that might bring the things back, and, and—

Wonshik felt himself be moved around. Sanghyuk’s face came into focus again as he grasped his shoulders, looking at him, his eyes wide and worried. 

“Sorry. Fuck.”

Sanghyuk scooped up Wonshik, and the movement jostled everything that he had been trying to keep still, and everything goes black for a second. When he came to again, he felt nauseous, shivery. More than before. Good thing Sanghyuk's chest was right there, rising and falling with his breath. He was warm and solid. 

“My rescuer. I knew you liked me.” Wonshik patted whatever part of Sanghyuk seemed nearest. He missed a little. “I might throw up on you.” 

Sanghyuk barked a tight laugh, a little breathless as he hoisted Wonshik more securely into his arms. “Like you haven't before. Remember, that reception-thing when we got married on that ice planet, and you drank way too much of their weird pink cider?” 

“Right. I’ll—I’ll try not to do that again.” His words weren't really working right in his mouth. He pushed his face into Sanghyuk’s chest and tried to concentrate on breathing. 

“—in, Sanghyuk. Sanghyuk?” His communicator crackled. Sanghyuk made a shuddery sound of relief.

“Fuck, there you are. Need an immediate evac. I’ve got Wonshik. He’s not great. A broken leg, and he’s in shock, and there's something in his system making him worse. An analysis can't identify it off-hand. No immediate hostiles, but they might be coming back, they had him in a, a fucking basement cave thing.” Sanghyuk's voice was steady, but it shook a little at the edges. “Can you get a fix on us? Over.”

“Almost there. Taekwoon’s working on it. Hang tight. Over.” Jaehwan’s voice was serious, steady. It was nice to hear him.

There were important things he had to say. “Hey, you know I love you guys, right? Lots. Yeah. Hey. My sister, if.”

“Fuck you, don’t say that.” Sanghyuk broke off, his voice shaky, young. He sounded a little like those first months of the mission, when he was green and straight out of the academy. Wonshik wanted to tell him that it was going to be fine.

The last thing he could remember was Sanghyuk clutching him close, the angles of Sanghyuk’s face stark and serious in the beginnings of the teleporter glow. 

Wonshik woke up later in the infirmary. 

He flopped his head over. Sanghyuk was there, dozing on his folded arms. 

Wonshik’s arms didn’t seem to work right, but he could reach far enough to pass his fingers through the thick fall of Sanghyuk’s fringe before his arm gave out again. He heard Sanghyuk rouse, then felt the warm pressure of Sanghyuk’s hand on his dressings, a light-fingered touch checking if they were secure. 

“You have to be more careful,” Sanghyuk said shakily. “We’re all too young to be widowers, you jerk.”

“Okay,” he croaked. 

“Seriously. We’d all fight over who gets the good stuff from your will. The stuff Hakyeon hasn’t already claimed for himself, anyway.”

It hurt to laugh, a little, but it also felt really good. He couldn’t keep his eyes open, though.

“Will you—can you be there when I wake up again?” Wonshik said. 

Sanghyuk’s face went soft. “Yeah. Sure.”

It took him awhile to get back on his feet, but every time he woke up, there was someone there. Hongbin puttering around the infirmary and carefully checking his convalescence, his grin and his hands a little shaky. Jaehwan and Sanghyuk reading him comics and splitting narration duties. Taekwoon wordlessly climbing into the infirmary bed to drape himself over his side and tuck his head into his shoulder like an overlarge cat. Hakyeon, bright-eyed and fierce, caught between scolding him and hugging him tight enough to make his ribs creak.

It was nice.

 

6.

Sometimes, Wonshik couldn’t help but feel every single light-year between him and his family. Receiving a video with a few months of intergalactic delay from his sister wasn’t like talking to her in the same room, hearing about her progress in the academy and her roommates and her worries, or calling her in the middle of the night when he wanted to talk. Sometimes, Wonshik couldn’t sleep, caught by the things he wanted to do and the way they seemed at once too big and too small for the impossible immensity around them.

It was the middle of night shift, and the corridors of the ship were mostly empty, the lights dimmed. The clouded surface of the planet roiled underneath them, beautiful and lifeless and uncaring of their tiny craft in orbit.

Wonshik jumped when a hand landed on his shoulder.

“Still awake?” Hakyeon said.

Wonshik shrugged. 

Hakyeon wrapped an arm around his waist, resisting any half-hearted attempts that Wonshik made to squirm out of his grasp. Wonshik slumped a little, enough so that he could rest his head on Hakyeon’s shoulder. They stayed like that for a bit, the planet shifting under them.

“Our anniversary is next week. Have you thought about what you’re going to get me?” Hakyeon said suddenly.

“Our anniversary?”

“Yep. Well, all of our anniversaries. I decided it would be more efficient to do them all at once.”

Wonshik ducked his head, grinning. “Did you decide this? Nobody told me.” 

“We took a vote on it. Very official. Sanghyuk voted for you, don’t worry.”

Wonshik laughed.

Wonshik thought of the gravity pulling them to the planet carefully balanced against their velocity. Thought of Taekwoon putting his head on his shoulder, of Jaehwan leaning into his hand when Wonshik found himself helplessly reaching towards him. Thought of Hongbin checking him over and clearing him with a touch of his fingertips to his knee, of Sanghyuk’s thigh pressed to his as he attentively watched him calibrate instruments. Thought of the bonds between people and the way you chose them and the way you named them, of all the different ways that things in the universe chose to bind themselves together.

Hakyeon squeezed his waist. “Come to bed.” 

“Okay. Yeah, okay.”

Thought of them, here in the space between stars.


End file.
